Your report says managed word-of-mouth (WOM) programs, like those from BzzAgent, generate more WOM than happens from everyday people. Interesting, but not a surprising finding especially considering BzzAgents are most likely more skillful at recognizing and reporting WOM activity than their peers in your convenience sample. What are your thoughts about BzzAgents potentially being more skillful at knowing when and where WOM happens and thus being able to report such activity for your study?

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This is an interesting point. First, I agree with you, it shouldn't be a surprising finding that BzzAgents report more WOM episodes than non-Agents. The amount of the difference was what surprised me (for example, Agents having twice as many of their total interactions include a WOM episode). Second, I don't have any direct measurement of whether or not BzzAgents are more or less skillful at recognizing WOM opportunities. My sense is, however, and like yours, that they probably are better able to recognize WOM opportunities. The point I think you're getting at, though, is were they this way "naturally" or does it have something to do with BzzAgent. I don't know, but here are my thoughts:

First, at the very least, I think Agents are more conscious of, and attuned to, the WOM process. I think the more a person's awareness of WOM is raised, and the more a person is encouraged to spread WOM, then the greater likelihood that person will see opportunities to do so (it's kind of like the social-psychological process of buying a certain kind of car and then "suddenly" noticing how many other cars like yours are on the road).

But more importantly, another reason why BzzAgents might develop better acuity in seeing WOM opportunities is that there is a social system in place that a) provides positive feedback about the WOM activity and b) creates a community where this activity is supported. As Dave Balter and Matt McGlinn have talked about at WOMMA conferences, when BzzAgents submit reports, they receive personalized responses from company representatives about their WOM activity. This interaction between the Agent in the field, and the person at the "Central Hive", makes their Agents' own WOM activity part of a larger social process of participation in a community, which creates more identification with the values of that community, and one of those values is to share your feelings about ideas, brands, products, and services with other people (that is, engaging in WOM).

So, whether the BzzAgent system helps people to be better at recognizing opportunities for WOM, or the Agents were like that already (which may have attracted them to BzzAgent) is an open question. Either way, I would wager that any WOM program that makes engaging WOM part of a larger social and relational process, whether it's BzzAgent or some other model, will lead to increased levels of WOM activity. The non-Agents in the study don't have that added sense of being part of a larger community of passionate people spreading WOM.

And of course, BzzAgents have more opportunity for participating in WOM when they do so as part of a buzz marketing campaign. But very interestingly, and I think this is one of the more fascinating results, the majority of the BzzAgents' reported WOM episodes were not related to buzz marketing campaigns. But instead they were "everyday" WOM unrelated to specific products with BzzAgent. I have a whole section on the implications of this finding in my paper and why clients of word-of-mouth marketing agencies shouldn't want Agents to buzz about their product 24-7 (see my last comment at the end of the post for more details).

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And ... help me to understand how similar, in demographics and psychographics, your two sample sets are/were. The white paper only outlines the everyday, non-BzzAgent sample as being college educated adults ranging in age from 18 to 29. Since the paper empirically states the BzzAgent sample set is more socially active, I’d like to know if BzzAgents are potentially more socially inclined than are the people in the everyday, convenience sample.

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Another interesting question. I didn't have access to specific psychographic data on the BzzAgents, or the non-Agents, so I can't provide that detail for you. Additional demographic data was available for the Agent sample, and it's reported in my article. Here's an excerpt from the methods section:

"The participant sample was representative of the larger Agent population on all available demographic variables: sex, age, ethnicity, education level and income levels. 83% of the sample was female; ages ranged from 13-72 with 45% being 18-29; approximately 90% self-identified as white or European-American; 54% had some college or a 4-year college degree; and approximately 65% reported incomes within the range of $20,000 - $80,000 per year (26% reporting over $80K and 9% reporting under $20K)" (from Carl, in press).

For the convenience sample, the only demographic information collected was sex, age, and education level. 67% of the sample was female and the average age was right around 20. All were pursuing a 4-year college degree.

Now, the bit about if they are more socially inclined. Do you mean are they more introverted or extroverted, to use trait-based psychological terms? I don't have measurements of that, but Agents certainly reported engaging in more interactions on average. Specifically, about 140 interactions over a 7-day period for Agents versus 108 for non-Agents. (An interaction was defined as any conversation that a person considered meaningful and that was more than just a "hi and bye" made in passing). Thus, the white paper reports engaging in more interactions as an indication of being more "socially active," but we don't have data on whether or not they are more socially "inclined." I wouldn't want to speculate much more beyond that., though I'd be interested to hear your thoughts on that point.

I'll have new data coming in shortly for non-Agents about frequency of interactions, WOM episodes, and the E/I ratio (that is, the percentage of one's total interactions that include a WOM episode). I'll report those statistics when I get the data cleaned and analyzed.

I'd also like to respond to "Paughnee" who posted this comment to your blog:

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Most BzzAgents are probably in the habit of making a mental note of WOM in a conversation whether they are reporting it or not.

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Perhaps, but both Agents and non-Agents had similar instructions and a similar log sheet about what to record and what not to record. So I don't think this would be a big factor in how they reported it on the "Total Interactions and Word-of-Mouth Episode Worksheet" (the original log sheet I designed for this study; e-mail me and I can send you a copy if you're interested).

My pleasure! Thank you for your interest in my research. I'd love to continue this conversation further! :-) I can send you a pre-press version of the full article if you're interested (just e-mail me). I would just ask that it not be posted or distributed as there are copyright issues based on the contract with the publisher for the academic journal.

About Me

I am founder and Chief Research Officer at ChatThreads Corp., an innovative word of mouth research firm that provides independent, third-party measurement services and derives actionable insights from how WOM communication spreads among individuals and social networks. I received my Ph.D. from the University of Iowa and my master's degree from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.